fradulant verizon bill
Complaint
gina simmons
Country: United States
I have just received a collection notice from Afni Inc that states I owe $246.85 to verizon. This account is said to be from 1999. I don't owe verizon anything.When asked why if I owed this then why haven't I heard anything until now. The Afni employee said that gte was taken over by verizon, and that the files had not been audited in the last 5-10 years. This Afni company has now bought these files, but have no notes on any bills that have or have not been paid. I could not beleive that people could get away with this scam. I have filed a better buisness report, and have found out the statue of limitations law in my state. It was very helpful, and I now know my rights under the laws to proctect people from monsters like Afni. I have had a verizon account for the last past 5 years,and have never had any problems. It's unfortunate that a company like Afni is smearing the Verizon name.
Comments
Complaintsboard.com currently shows 626 consumer complaint threads matching "AFNI". Many of these threads include several distinct consumer complaints as comments. In addition, under the 1056 reports matching "Verizon", a number of them are actually collection complaints against AFNI.
A search of FICO Forums on myFICO.com shows 153 hits on "AFNI".
pissedconsumer.com, creditboards.com, and many others show more.
BBB currently shows:
"The BBB processed a total of 1133 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period.Of the total of 1133 complaints closed in 36 months, 723 were closed in the last year."
Based on the above, we can estimate that there are more than 1000 distinct complaints against AFNI whose details are being publicly reported.
When you receive a letter from any debt collector regarding a questionable debt, immediately send a letter disputing the debt and requesting that they send validation of the debt. Send that letter certified return receipt requested.
If they claim you owed Sprint, and you believe you do not owe any such debt, or even that you never had an account with Sprint, also contact Sprint and ask Sprint to check if they show any outstanding accounts under your name and SSN. You may find as others have that AFNI is attempting to collect some debt from you, but Sprint doesn't even show you having any account with them. Most complaints against AFNI are that it attempts to collect from the wrong person.
If you have any problems, contact the office of the Illinois Attorney General. They have opened an investigation of AFNI's activities.
The records transferred to Verizon from the various companies they bought may have contained errors, or Verizon did not correctly transfer operations of the systems needed to correctly access those records. The generation of these spurious "debts" may also indicate that the processing pass that Verizon made to collect and send these accounts to AFNI when they sold them did not correctly interpret the account codings, or that AFNI was just given wholesale access to Verizon's old records, and it was left to AFNI to determine which accounts were "debts", and which were write-offs as billing adjustments or corrections. For example, some consumers have reported billing errors that they had originally disputed and had corrected showing up recently as "unpaid balances" in AFNI's hands. That would have allowed AFNI to treat ANY write-off as an unpaid "debt".
Verizon has been of little help in cleaning up their mess, other than when confronted by consumer reporters, in which case there are several news reports where the problem was quickly determined to be an error, and allegedly corrected. One Verizon employee reported receiving an AFNI "bill", but with access to Verizon's internal records, he determined the old account was actually showing closed with no balance due, despite AFNI's claim to the contrary.
AFNI, for their part, has generally evaded attempts by consumers to obtain accurate validation. AFNI employees have been reported to offer various excuses why they don't have to provide validation, or why Verizon's records must be the ones in error, for example, when consumers have contacted Verizon and found that there was no account due under their name. Although a number of Verizon customer service employees contacted about these alleged debts have disclosed to consumers that they have received a number of AFNI complaints of this sort, Verizon still continues to use AFNI as an outsourced call center and debt collector.
Why should consumers have to put up with this crap, and 10 years after they pay their bills, at that? They shouldn't.
Debts last paid in 1997, whether real or imagined, cannot be legally reported on your credit reports, since FCRA only allows reporting up to at most 7.5 years after the original date of delinquency.
In addition, in most states the statute of limitations would have passed already on a debt last paid over 10 years ago. (Verify that this is the case in your state.)
Send them a letter, certified return receipt requested, notifying them that the alleged debt is disputed, that it was paid in full in 1997, that under FCRA it is illegal to report such old alleged debts on your credit report, and that the statute of limitations has expired. Notify them that you are requesting that they cease all communications on this debt, as provided for in the FDCPA.
File a complaint with the Illinois Attorney General regarding the "validation" provided.
If they continue to demand payment after you confirm they received your cease communications letter, find an attorney and sue them.
The reason why people have 20 or 30 year mortgages doesn't mean that if they stop paying the mortgage after the 1st year that they will have bad credit for 29 more years. Last late payment that is reported is 7 years and going bankrupt is 10 years from the court dismissal date.
If someone has an old debt of 5 years old, debt collection agencies are known for trying to get you to make a payment on a 5 or 6 year old debt so they can start the 7 year period all over again.
AS SOON AS YOU MAKE ONE PAYMENT it starts all over again.
1) Verizon fails to correctly transfer accounts when requested
2) AFNI will attempt collection from earlier names on an account that may actually have been transferred by Verizon. In other words, AFNI may be attempting to collect from persons they may know do not owe an alleged debt if they think they can be convinced to pay.
Since there are already a number of reports of AFNI collecting from people based only on addresses in common with some alleged account, hypotheses (2) above should be considered. There are additional consumer reports of accounts involving billing corrections with Verizon, where Verizon can confirm the correction with no balance due, yet AFNI is now collecting on the "error".
Check with Verizon. They may show the account as actually transferred or closed, despite AFNI's claim it is still in your name. If you have problems with such accounts, dispute and request validation in writing (certified return receipt requested), and contact the Illinois Attorney General.
Nothing SHOWING me of how or why 93.00 was owed.
I have let the 30 days of written notice slip by thinking that I could resolve this talking to afni directly.
If anyone knows what a person can do AFTER 30 days has gone by would greatly be appreciated .
I basically already told them to goto hell because they say they have the information available but legally dont have to give it to me..and wont give it to me. It is my responsibility to prove why I dont owe the amount..or pay half of that amount to close.
They depended on your lack of sophistication and knowledge of consumer debt collection law, strung you along, sent you a "statement" probably from their own electronic records rather than directly from the original creditor, and deceptively told you that you had to prove you didn't owe a debt, but that they didn't have to provide you any of the records they claimed they had, while still demanding payment.
Although your FDCPA rights are strongest if you send a written request for validation within 30 days, ALL that happens if you don't is that they can "assume the debt is valid", and continue collection activities. That does NOT mean that the debt IS valid, nor according to FDCPA can any court interpret your failure to request validation as an admission or proof that the debt is actually valid.
To claim that failing to dispute or request validation, or doing so after 30 days, "makes" a debt valid, is contrary to the clear wording of the FDCPA, and therefore using deception to attempt to collect a debt, violating the FDCPa.
Requesting validation, as provided for in FDCPA, is supposed to provide the consumer the opportunity to have the debt collector to obtain documentation from the original creditor to make sure the alleged debt is actually owed, and that the consumer is the person who owes it.
Responding to validation requests is part of a basic responsibility of debt collectors to ensure that they do not collect money that is not owed, or from people who do not owe them. It is not some annoying, pesky legal requirement to find ways around through deception and "word games".
Debt collectors have an obligation to NOT collect unowed debts, and to NOT collect them from people who do NOT owe them. To DELIBERATELY and KNOWINGLY try to do otherwise is what con men do. It is fraud.
Although you may have requested validation by phone and not in writing, your request WAS timely, within 30 days, and they did, in fact, send you what they claim is validation, acknowledging your request. They accepted your phone validation request in lieu of a written request, and responded in writing.
If it wasn't actually "validation" and proof of the debt, since that is what you requested, then sending anything else, such as their own fabricated "statement" represented to be "validation", expecting to avoid sending "real" validation just because you requested it by phone, would be deceptive collection.
If the "validation" they sent was inadequate, your request was still timely, so it is still fair game to notify them of that inadequacy and request further more detailed validation (in writing now) in connection with your original timely request. Their response already establishes the timely nature of your original request. For them to claim that now, although they received and responded to your original validation request with insufficient documentation, but that since 30 days is now passed you can't ask them to rectify their "oversight", is an absurdity.
File a complaint with the Illinois and Florida Attorneys General. Include in your complaint that you requested that they provided proof of the debt, and that what they sent you contained no indication about where the charge came from or what it was for.
Include that you suspected that it was erroneous and not obtained from the original creditor, as it contained no details you would expect in original statements indicating the reasons for the charges, and that they have refused to provide any of the documentation on the alleged debt that they claim to have in their possession, while telling you that you have to somehow disprove you owe it, or else pay them.
Also, pull your credit reports. If their account information is on them, file a dispute with the credit reporting agency. If they "verify" after you have requested more detailed proof that the debt is valid, but before they have provided it, file additional FTC, and AG complaints.
Did you know that you could sue afni.... they are being sued by the state of Minnesota?
Did you know that you could sue afni.... they are being sued by the state of Minnesota?
The "disconected number" allegation means little since AFNI employees havee often been reported to guess or make up reasons for bills. Apparently, they would rather get your money than fix a billing error, even though supposedly Verizon has hired them to do "customer service".
File written complaints against Verizon and AFNI with FCC, FTC, and your state public utilities commission.
They will probably just blame Verizon, but make them substantiate that they had an account passed from Verizon, and what account it was, to determine whether it was even your account (possibly related to Verizon's billing errors), or someone else's account.
AFNI, Inc. is claiming I owe $142.00, for a Qwest account, which I have not had since 2000.
According to my credit report, AFNI, Inc. Date opened 7/2008, reported since 9/2008, last reported 10/2008. I have not lived in a state, which Qwest services, since 2003 and I have not had Qwest service since 2000.
I pull my reports regularly and I have yet to see any negatives accounts posted on my credit report from Qwest, let alone receive any collections letter, which they should not send to me since the account has been paid upon closing the account.
According to budhibbs.com http://budhibbs.com/debtcollectorpages/AFNI.htm
"CONSUMERS ARE WARNED NOT TO FALL FOR THEIR SCAM OF ATTEMPTING TO COLLECT ON TIME BARRED DEBTS FROM VERIZON/GTE ACCOUNTS THAT DATE BACK TO THE EARLY 90'S. AFNI CANNOT SUE ON THESE DEBTS, THEY CANNOT REPORT THEM ON YOUR CREDIT FILES."
The Statue of Limitations, currently in Georgia is 6 years, as of January 2008. It used to be 4 years.
I am in the processing of getting a my first home loan and would give anything to get this negative mark off my credit report, before I go to apply for the loan. I am also very surprised that this so called collection agency has put this mark on my credit report, they have never reported anything prior to now.
It was my understanding that after so many years, after you close an account, a collection agency cannot put a negative mark on your credit report.
They appear to bave recently purchased a batch of QWEST accounts, engaging in their usual game of billing anyone with a similar name which results in billing the wrong people and trashing their credit. AFNI does not appear to care whether they damage innocent parties, apparently depending on the weak consumer protections in FCRA that result in no liability until a consumer finds and disputes their garbage on their credit reports.
Although this alleged debt might be related to your account from 2000, since it is illegal under FCRA for AFNI to knowingly report it 7 years past the original date of delinquency, it might just as likely be someone else's account. Based on the many consumer complaints, it appears that AFNI does little to avoid billing or damaging the wrong party.
Erroneous damaging information on your credit reports can be costly when your are trying to get a home loan. The collapse of your financing (in this skittish credit market), or the degradation in lending terms may cost you thousands of dollars, and AFNI wouldn't even be liable unless you handle this correctly.
It makes sense for you to contact an attorney with experience in consumer protection, FDCPA and FCRA litigation immediately to attempt to force AFNI to remove it, or be positioned to sue for damages. FDCPA and FCRA allow for courts to award attorneys fees in addition to damages should you prevail, so a number of attorneys in this area will accept cases on contingency.
Since you are in Georgia, you might want to contact attorney John Watts, as it appears that this is an area of law that he has both experience and an interest in. In addition, he has sued AFNI a number of times in the past, and appears to be aware of the games they are playing. He might know who to contact directly to force the issue quickly.
http://www.alabamaconsumer.com/CM/Custom/Attorneys.asp
You might also find other attorneys in your area with FDCPA and FCRA experience through:
www.naca.net
Note that this is not a recommendation based on personal experience, just an observation that you would be wise to look for an experienced attorney in this area of law when you have real money at stake and need to act quickly.